40 Year Itch : Tommy Mottola Lives On The Road

Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band : Cherchez La Femme/ Se Si Bon

[Purchase]

There really wasn't anything on the radio that sounded like the big band inspired disco of "Cherchez La Femme/ Se Si Bon", one of my very favorite songs released in 1976. It wasn't released as a single until after it became a surpise hit in the discos where it topped the US Dance Charts.

Sophisto-Disco? It really shouldn't work. Credit goes to Stony Browder, Jr and Charlie Calello for the arrangements. Browder wrote the song with his brother August Darnell who saw every song as a "mini-screenplay" and would later form Kid Creole and the Coconuts. And of course Cory Daye has a remarkable voice.

Stony Browder told New York Magazine the Bronx based band's skin tones had a lot to do with their  sound.

"We don't belong. Mulattos never do. Whites don't like us because they think we're niggies. And blacks don't like us because they think we're whiteys. We don't fit anywhere. That's why we've gone off alone, created a totally separate thing."

I was so infatuated with the song that I sent away for an RCA cassette copy of the album when I was sent away to boarding school. It reminded me of listening to the radio in my room back home. I still have it. It's not a perfect album. The swing meets disco vibe tires me by side two.